Product separation cost in the context of bioprocessing is a major contributor to the overall cost of any manufacturing technologies for conventional agriculture-based biofuel production processes, biomass-derived processes such as cellulosic ethanol and even for direct conversion.
While there are several separation technologies including distillation and pervaporation capable of removing volatile products from fermentation broths, there is a need in the industry for recovering products in dilute concentrations. Pervaporation has been explored in recent years by the EPA: Vane, L. M. A review of pervaporation for product recovery from biomass fermentation processes. J Chem Technol Biotechnol 2005; 80: 603-629; Vane, L. M., et al., Separation of vapor-phase alcohol/water mixtures via fractional condensation using a pilot-scale fractional condenser: enhancement of the pervaporation process separation factor, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 43, (2004), 173; Vane, L. M. Separation technologies for the recovery and dehydration of alcohols from fermentation broths, Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref. 2:553-588 (2008) for possible commercialization in ethanol recovery. However, to date, recovery of volatile products produced in low concentration in air and water mixtures remains challenging.
There is a need for apparatuses, systems and methods that can recover volatile products produced in low concentration in air and water mixtures with high purity and recovery yield. There is further a need that these apparatuses, systems and methods are designed to achieve low-cost and efficient recovery processes.